The French crouched, shields raised. Hundreds of drumbeats pounding down on them. And again. They bent a knee. Huddled. The storm hammered them. And again.

‘Now!’ said Blackstone and set off at the run.

De Montfort was taken by surprise and was immediately yards behind Blackstone and John Jacob. He gathered his wits and charged after them. The French were still bent beneath the onslaught of the archers’ arrows. The final flight of death from the sky would be moments before Blackstone reached the enemy front division. Will Longdon understood how close his archers could shoot to the attacking men-at-arms. Once they clashed it would be time for the lightly armed archers to lay down their bows and join the fray.

The French raised themselves to meet the onslaught. Their spears wavered, and were then knocked aside by the attackers’ impetus. Some caught men’s groins or legs. De Montfort’s front rank kept on, jumping over men writhing in pain. Blackstone and John Jacob broke through. Shields battering men aside, sword blades slashing and stabbing. Blackstone sensed rather than saw Chandos and Killbere press forward from the flank. The ripple ran across the French front division, a wave turning from striking a cliff face. Blackstone saw de Montfort pushing into the fractured front line three yards from him. The force of the attack had caused the French to falter but they quickly recovered and the weight of men from the rear began to trample over their own who lay wounded. It was as Blackstone planned. Tired men succumbing quickly to the onslaught and then being killed by their own weight of numbers. Their bodies slowing the enemy advance as they tried to clamber over their fallen comrades.

John Chandos and Killbere move forward from the sawtooth deployment, their men-at-arms plunging into the enemy’s flank, protecting the archers. They pierced the French front division, forcing aside the shield wall that had been slow to recover from Will Longdon’s bowmen’s assault. The ferocious attack that had caused the ripple down the line forced Blackstone and de Montfort to hold their ground and stop the surge of desperate Frenchmen whose ranks broke into isolated pockets of men.

Blackstone felt the tide of the attack turn. Chandos was fighting forward towards Bertrand du Guesclin’s banner. He was a prize worth having. De Montfort had men at his shoulder who hacked their way forward, clearing fighting space for him. John Jacob covered his one side, Blackstone the other. Stride by stride they slashed, jabbed and barged men down. De Montfort did not comprehend that Blackstone and the men around him had created a space ensuring no one struck him from his blind side.